If You Only Had One Shot
by Coffin Liqueur
Summary: Oneshot-for-now roleswap what-if. Before the main game of RE7, instead of Lucas receiving a cure, the Connections make Zoe an offer she can't refuse.


_ Eveline has assumed full control of Jack and Marguerite Baker. Periods of lucidity appear to have ceased. Behavior is extremely hostile and aggressive and, at times, paranoid. Growing increasingly difficult to observe E-001 from a distance; field researchers have experienced 2 close calls in the past week. Equipped to neutralize in case of emergency, but fear retaliation and/or higher guard on part of Eveline. _

_ Strength of influence on son and daughter, Lucas and Zoe, difficult to ascertain. Continued impermanent periods of lucidity observed independently of each other. Current theories: lower amounts of direct exposure to E-001 than Jack and Marguerite; Eveline satisfied with likelihood of submission to Jack and Marguerite; Eveline viewing existing children of the family as rivals and "allowing" them moments of clarity to assert her superiority in light of her control over the parents. In these lucid periods, both siblings respectively seek distance between themselves and Jack, Marguerite, Eveline, and each other. Escape attempts appear to have ceased until further notice. _

_ Useable to our advantage? _

* * *

"Whaddya mean by '_our_'?" Zoe said.

Her eyes were cold, and sharp, and hollow, and wide. She didn't blink them once. Milne did, slowly. Maintaining eye contact.

...It was so damn _ smug_. She finally shut her eyes. Held it, focused on a breath, tossed out the creeping and buzzing under her skin with a shake of her head. "...I haven't agreed to anything."

Eyes popped back open. Pinned back on the man in the white coat from a low angle.

Weary. _ I can't god-damn believe you're making me discuss this. _

"And I ain't gonna," she said. Likewise all at once coldly, and sharply, and hollowly. "I ain't gonna watch _ my _ family suffer for _ your _profit."

_ I can't believe you're showin' up as one o' the men behind the curtain and you think you have _ any _ kind of appeal to make. _

Milne's face didn't change - that quiet, rested just-short-of-Mona-Lisa point where at seeming rest, you can't help but feel a smile in the curve of their mouth. His head tilted slowly, slowly, slightly. Ten degrees, ten degrees, ten degrees.

"If you have any more of whatever you dosed me with, you _ will _give it to them, too."

A steady blink again. She saw Milne's shoulders rise - took the fucking intake of breath, of all things, as giving her some kind of quarter. "Clean up the mess you made," she said, intending it to be a spit; it barely sizzled. Simply crackled whispery, like a quick whirlwind catching dry leaves and petering out.

_ God, why, why, _ why _ are we even talking about this. _

Milne's head lifted slightly and Zoe's _ snapped _ lifted as well. "Un-_fortunately_, it wasn't an accident that you're the one we approached with the injection to begin with," he said. Eyes lowering absently to his clipboard; he tapped the clicker of his pen on it once. Twice. "...All our observation notes suggest that by now, the mental effects of E-mutamycete infection have taken a full hold in your parents. They're completely under Eveline's control, and we don't know how safe outright shutting that down would be for anyone, at this point."

"'F it's just my parents, cure my brother, then."

"I'm not sure how much that'd actually get you any closer to what you want. Even if it hadn't already been risky enough trying to get ahold of you without grabbing attention." Milne raised his eyes to her again - wax-museum blank-yet-too-focused, too-pointedly-rounded. Another tap of the pen. "Whether the two of you stayed or ran, you'd still be leaving your parents behind."

"He can do whatever he wants 's long as he's better. I already know I'm calling for help as soon as this interview's over."

Milne smirked.

It flicked a wave of chill and tension down Zoe's back. Her brow furrowed; she scowled.

It was the first time the man had _ distinctly _smiled since he'd greeted her ten damn minutes ago.

_ Click. _

"Ah, see, but here's the problem!" he said. He raised his pen for a moment and held it out in a little flourish - a slo-mo, curving punching motion. "In terms of help, too, I can _ guarantee _we're your safest bet."

...Zoe's brow scrunched deeper. She fixed her stare on him.

_ ...Elaborate? _

"Unlike the government or the B.S.A.A., we have an active interest in _ not _destroying Eveline or any infected."

...Something slimy and icy slid down into Zoe's stomach and sat at the bottom, fat and heavy.

"... - None a' them are murderers," she said. There was less body to it than she had intended. More shake.

She hated hearing it. Not because she was showing fear, but because of what that meant.

He had a point. She had something to be afraid of.

And Milne seemed contented in her recognition. He rested - smile, lids of his eyes, his posture. All of it rested, just a little bit more. He resumed his tapping. "While I _ think _I know what you mean, since your parents found Eveline, the effects of her escape have gotten bad enough that I doubt bringing things back under control could be done by anyone without deadly force.

"You haven't seen the half of it. The bayou around your family's estate is crawling with Molded for quite a ways." His eyes drifted for a moment; he nodded aside in a couple of bobs. That's right. "Wildlife is infected. A lot of it killed off, a lot of it affecting them the same way you've seen it affect your parents. If you're expecting you could have your family extracted someplace, anyone sent in would have one big task on their hands even without your mom and dad not cooperating."

The chill from the thing in her stomach had spread. She felt ice sheets under her skin.

Milne's eyebrows lifted. _ Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. _

"...Not aware of how up on world events and the handling around incidents of this kind someone your age would be, but it'd be far from the first time hostile civilians were killed to get to the bottom of a bioterrorism event. At this point, I doubt two or three more would be a drop in the bucket in adding to casualty counts of individual _ agents_."

The tapping stilled.

Milne's smile flickered wide again.

Zoe began to hear and feel the ice begin to _ drip_.

Plops into a pool in hollows within hollows in her ears.

"And that's if they bothered entering the area at all, in case you were to point them our way." He sat a little taller - made another pen-flourish her way. "I'm sure there were survivors of Raccoon City, right up until the missile landed.

"I _ genuinely _ don't mean any offense - but a lot less would be lost by doing the same to a contaminated area in a Louisiana farm town. Centered on _ one _house off the beaten path."

Zoe's hands had formed fists in her lap. She squeezed them - in tight, slow-rolling tandem and watched. Back to being unblinking. Knuckles white. ...Then red. ...White. ...Then red.

She swallowed. Felt her face going pale - the cold from the lack of blood.

"Do you think you'll concede?" asked Milne. Same tone. Same _god-damn I-am-concerned-about-you-but-I-say-this-so-casually tone_. _Fuck you, you don't give a _damn _about my family, and yet you are _right_._ "We already have the power to concoct an _imperfect _cure. As an inside woman and research aide, providing us some more direct notes, and insights, and samples we may not have been able to access otherwise… well, I _strongly _believe you'll be able to do more help for your family working _with _us than you'd be able to do making any moves that'd _expose _us."

"Fine," she said before she was even ready to hear herself say it, rushing and whispery.

" - Hmn?"

She swallowed.

Things stretched and pulled.

The space in her chest yawned wide open. Her heartbeat echoed loud as the scratching of the breath she drew back in.

She shut her eyes. In a moment of apology to good-knows-who.

"_ \- Yeah." _

Too loud. Too tense. Too shouted. All in the name of projection. Certainty.

...She felt her face screwing up a bit - she bit the inside of her lip to anchor it, and nodded.

"...Yeah, fine," she said. "...I'll do it.

"...I'll take the job."

Her eyes flew back open. Snapped up onto Milne's face. _ Think fast. _

He rested once again. Set of his smile, lids of his eyes, and lowering posture. A lift of his arm and a turn of his wrist as he began to turn and hold the clipboard and pen out to her.

"Your cooperation is valued, then, Ms. Baker, and welcome to the Connections," he said - with the undercurrent of a lilt. "I didn't even get a chance to say this, but I think you'll find your pay to be pretty lucrative, too."

* * *

Written for the r/FanFiction January 2020 Prompt Challenge. Three Random Words: "Injection, Appeal, Concede".

I actually am interested in doing a full _RE7_ roleswap in the future (switching Ethan & Mia, Lucas & Zoe, and Jack & Marguerite, and exploring characters and their dynamics differently due to different characters being at the forefront - and, at that, characters who didn't get much attention originally, like Marguerite in particular!) to the forefront, but ha, I'm going to have to get back into giving my current two _RE_ multi-chapters some TLC long before I give into doing that!


End file.
